Varied Tit Sittiparus varius 雜色山雀
Category I. Rare accidental and irruptive visitor.
IDENTIFICATION
Sep. 2012, Lee Yat Ming.
12-15 cm. Blue-grey or grey tit with orange on mantle and underparts. Striking face pattern with black rear half to crown, sides of nape and throat, and white face and forecrown. Immatures are duller. Seen well, unlikely to be confused with any other species occurring in HK.
VOCALISATIONS
Although it utters generic scolding, rasping and churring sounds, the more distinctive calls are high-pitched and thin.
DISTRIBUTION AND HABITAT PREFERENCE
Birds have occurred in widespread areas lightly wooded habitat on Po Toi, eastern HK Island and the northwest New Territories.
OCCURRENCE
An irruption in the winter period 2012-13 brought the following records:
One on Po Toi from 16 September to 23 October 2012 (Mak 2014).
One at Tai Tong during 22-31 December 2012 and up to four there from 13 January to 5 March 2013.
One at Quarry Bay on 9 February 2013.
During the 2012-13 non-breeding season there was substantial evidence of an irruption in South Korea (Moores 2012) and China, including one at Shenzhen on 23 January 2013. As westerly and southwesterly movement was observed in both South Korea and Japan, the source of HK records is uncertain.
BEHAVIOUR, FORAGING AND DIET
Three birds were seen eating seeds of Polyspora axillaris.
RANGE & SYSTEMATICS
Breeds in northeast China, Korea, south Kuril Islands and Japan south to the Kerama Gap; there is an isolated population in the Nanling Mountains in northern Guangdong / southern Hunan. Previously regarded as largely resident with some evidence of movement to lower altitudes in winter (Harrap and Quinn 1996) or relatively short movements in Japan (principally Hokkaido) and Korea (Gosler et al. 2020), recent records in east Asia indicate that this species is irruptive. This would also explain the presence of the isolated population in northern Guangdong and southern Hunan, which presumably derives from birds that took part in a previous irruption that managed to become self-sustaining.
Five subspecies are recognised, the most widespread being the nominate, which occurs in the south Kuril Islands, Japan, Korea and northeast China. The remaining four occupy separate Japanese islands or island groups: S. v. sunsunpi on Tanegashima and Yakushima Island, S. v. namiyei on the north Izu Islands, S. v. amamii on the north Ryukyu Islands and S. v. orii on Daito Island. It is uncertain to which taxon records in HK can be assigned, though it was probably the nominate.
CONSERVATION STATUS
IUCN: Least Concern. Population trend unknown.
Brazil, M. 2018. Birds of Japan. Helm, London.
Gosler, A., P. Clement, and G. M. Kirwan (2020). Varied Tit (Sittiparus varius), version 1.0. In Birds of the World (J. del Hoyo, A. Elliott, J. Sargatal, D. A. Christie, and E. de Juana, Editors). Cornell Lab of Ornithology, Ithaca, NY, USA. https://doi.org/10.2173/bow.vartit1.01.
Harrap, S. and Quinn, D. 1996. Tits, Nuthatches and Treecreepers. Christopher Helm, London.
Mak, P. D. K. (2014). Varied Tit Poecile varius on Po Toi: the first Hong Kong record. Hong Kong Bird Report 2012: 226-228.
Moores, N. 2012. Varied Tit, Chinese Nuthatch and Yellow-bellied Tit: what else is on the move? http://www.birdskoreablog.org/?p=6337
